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Given crazy money thrown around in 2014 NHL free agency, is another lockout inevitable?http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2014/07/12/given-crazy-money-thrown-around-in-2014-nhl-free-agency-is-another-lockout-inevitable/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2014/07/12/given-crazy-money-thrown-around-in-2014-nhl-free-agency-is-another-lockout-inevitable/#commentsSat, 12 Jul 2014 10:00:05 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=204303Every summer, a select group of players qualify for unrestricted free agency, as set out in the NHL CBA. And every summer, general managers trip over themselves to throw long-term contracts at serious dollars to those who qualify.

Consequently, every …

]]>Every summer, a select group of players qualify for unrestricted free agency, as set out in the NHL CBA. And every summer, general managers trip over themselves to throw long-term contracts at serious dollars to those who qualify.

Consequently, every summer fans, media and former players shake their heads at the excess.

Jeremy Roenick, now employed by NBC Sports after a long and distinguished NHL career, expressed the thoughts of many with a series of July 2 tweets which paid particular note to “crazy” contracts handed out by the Edmonton Oilers, New York Islanders and Florida Panthers:

On one level, Roenick’s right – I happen to be in complete agreement that a long-term deal at $5.5 million per season for Dave Bolland qualifies as crazy.

But in a deeper, far more substantive way, Roenick couldn’t be more wrong.

Let’s review (very, very briefly) how NHL players get paid. Through a series of lockouts, NHL owners were able to force the NHLPA to accept a salary cap as part of a system in which player contracts are linked to league-wide revenue. The last lockout, which shortened the 2012-13 season, set the total compensation for all players at 50 percent of “hockey-related revenue” – in other words, the players get half (well, not really; in actuality they get much less than that because of the way HRR is defined and expenses which are deducted from it, but let’s not get into that now) of the money generated by the NHL. The salary cap is the primary mechanism to keep the players from earning more than that, and escrow hoovers up the excess (which knocked roughly 10 percent off the face value of every player’s contract last season).

Put more simply: bigger salaries for players are matched by massive increases in NHL revenue.

They’re like the tip of the iceberg that way. What we see is Dave Bolland signing for $5.5 million (it’s worth keeping in mind that the UFA process artificially limits supply, driving prices for free agents to a height that doesn’t accurately reflect the value of the average player), because that’s public information. What we don’t see is the massive increase in the revenue of individual teams, because it’s incredibly useful for individual teams not to show that information.

Because salaries are linked to revenue, when we see Dave Bolland sign a massive deal, we shouldn’t be thinking, ‘Man, player salaries are crazy again, how will the owners make any money!’ We should be thinking, ‘Man, NHL owners have to be making a pile of money given the rise in the salary cap!’

But that isn’t how our minds work, which gives the billionaire owners of NHL teams a massive PR advantage. We don’t see them making money hand over fist, and as a class they have a tendency to cry poor (which works great, because North America is full of gullible local administrations willing to pump money into pro sports teams without looking at their books).

So on the one hand the public has NHL teams saying they’re so poor that they will be forced to move if they don’t get government money for a new arena or a new scoreboard or to help cover operating expenses. And on the other hand we have Dave Bolland making $5.5 million per season.

So, in that sense, Jeremy Roenick is right again – just like pie, there is a deeper level to his argument which is as accurate as the top assertion that Dave Bolland is making crazy money. There will be another work stoppage in 10 years, and the league will point to crazy contracts (and with the cap going up, they’ll be way nuttier than even Bolland’s deal) and in all likelihood they’ll get much of the public onside with that kind of simple comparison.

It’s a predictable pattern. NHL owners were better off than they’d been in a long, long time when they forced the 2012-13 lockout, but they did it anyway because the NHL is a business – it’s not about surviving, it’s about making as much money as humanly possible. It’s the pattern we saw in 2012-13, and it’s a pattern echoed every time a team asks for public money while steadfastly refusing to open its books.

The only good news is that there’s most of a decade between now and the next NHL lockout.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2014/07/12/given-crazy-money-thrown-around-in-2014-nhl-free-agency-is-another-lockout-inevitable/feed/0rsz_mikhail-grabovski-toronto-maple-leafs-v-pittsburgh-ikyyupdrtzfxjonwillis63Roenick tweetsThe Edmonton Oilers’ rookie head coach sounds completely ready for the job aheadNHL Lockout: NHL’s class action complaint almost identical to NBA’s, but the differences are illuminatinghttp://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/15/nhl-lockout-nhls-class-action-complaint-almost-identical-to-nbas-but-the-differences-are-illuminating/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/15/nhl-lockout-nhls-class-action-complaint-almost-identical-to-nbas-but-the-differences-are-illuminating/#commentsSat, 15 Dec 2012 14:00:23 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=142048It has been said that the current NHL lockout not only includes many of the same actors as last year’s NBA labour dispute, but that it is in fact running off a nearly identical script as well. That belief got …]]>It has been said that the current NHL lockout not only includes many of the same actors as last year’s NBA labour dispute, but that it is in fact running off a nearly identical script as well. That belief got a lot of support on Friday with the NHL’s preemptive legal strike against the NHLPA.

The class action complaint for declaratory relief was, like the NBA’s, filed in the southern district court of New York. Like the NBA’s, lawyers from the firms of Proskauer Rose and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom were listed at the bottom. But the similarities went much further.

In fact, huge stretches of the two documents were nearly identical. Five of the NHL’s seven claims for relief were lifted directly from the NBA’s complaint. The same arguments were made, the same language was used; some paragraphs could have been word-for-word quotations. Every single non-NBA specific argument made in that league’s complaint was duplicated in the NHL’s version.

However, there are differences, and those differences are suggestive. Here are three that stood out to me:

The way the case that a disclaimer of interest would be a bargaining tactic rather than a legitimate end to collective bargaining was presented. In both filings, a central argument was that whether the union opted for decertification or a disclaimer of interest, they didn’t really mean it – in other words, it was a trick to negotiate a better deal and as such should be ignored.

Unfortunately for the NHL, while the NBPA has a pretty long track record of signing deals after talking about decertification, there is no similar track record with the NHLPA. So rather than just say ‘look what they’ve done before!’ the way the NBA was able to, they had to spend a lot more time building a case.

There are myriad extra paragraphs detailing individual players suggesting decertification as a bargaining tactic. There are references to the actions of other unions. To my untrained eye, however, while the NHL has supplied a ton of evidence they are missing two really key pieces: first, an NHLPA track record of doing what they’re alleging, and secondly a Donald Fehr quote hinting at what they’re alleging. They tried for the second; here’s what they got:

You can look at what’s happened in other sports and make your own judgment about [possible NHLPA decertification].

Damning it isn’t.

This is totally the greatest union ever. I’m not sure if this point is so much illustrative as it is just plain funny, but after months of whispering that Donald Fehr was misleading his players and hinting that unity was a major problem, the league took pains to illustrate exactly how awesome the NHLPA has been for the players. The NHL’s complaint digs up tweets, quotes, anything at all said by an NHL player that supports the argument the union is unified and meeting the needs of players. An excerpt from their conclusion, in paragraph 54:

In the recent days and weeks, NHL players have voiced their support for Executive Director Don Fehr, and Steve Fehr, special counsel to the NHLPA, said the union had been getting “amazing support” from the players. These comments do not suggest that the NHL players are unhappy with their Union representation, wish to oust current NHLPA leadership, permanently disband the Union, or prefer to pursue bargaining aims on an individual basis.

Damages. The NHL complaint also spends more time on the subject of damages than its NBA counterpart did. One of the two new claims for relief presented specifically asks that because the NHL lockout arose out of a legitimate collective bargaining process, the court should specifically say that there is no basis for individual players to go on to sue for damages. It’s a point emphasized repeatedly throughout the document, and in paragraph 89 the league makes special mention of treble damages as something the court should rule against.

Of those three points, it is the first one that stood out to me most prominently. If I had just been reading the NHL filing, as a layman I likely would have come away with the impression that the league’s argument was fairly strong. Compared to the NBA complaint, however, the meat behind the allegation that the NHLPA doesn’t really intend to go through with decertifying seems quite thin.

Beyond that, for the most part the overriding message I got from comparing the two documents is that for all the ups and downs of this dispute, on the NHL side the playbook was written well in advance and they’re walking step for step in the trail blazed by the NBA.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/15/nhl-lockout-nhls-class-action-complaint-almost-identical-to-nbas-but-the-differences-are-illuminating/feed/0Bill Daly Bob Batterman (feature)jonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: Battle moves to the courts as league files class action complaint, unfair labour practice chargeshttp://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/14/nhl-lockout-battle-moves-to-the-courts-as-league-files-class-action-complaint-unfair-labour-practice-charges/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/14/nhl-lockout-battle-moves-to-the-courts-as-league-files-class-action-complaint-unfair-labour-practice-charges/#commentsFri, 14 Dec 2012 22:05:19 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=141977After months of speculation that the NHLPA would take it’s labour dispute with the NHL to the courts, the league beat them to the punch, filing a class action complaint with a court in New York seeking confirmation that its …]]>After months of speculation that the NHLPA would take it’s labour dispute with the NHL to the courts, the league beat them to the punch, filing a class action complaint with a court in New York seeking confirmation that its lockout of its players is legal, as well as an unfair labour practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The NHL’s decision to preemptively head off an NHLPA move to the courts allows them to fight the legal battle in the jurisdiction of their choice. Had the players filed suit, it is likely that they would have chosen a jurisdiction such as California, where the courts are more friendly to organized labour. New York is perceived to be a venue more likely to rule in favour of the league.

NEW YORK — Today, in response to information indicating that NHL Players have or will be asked to vote to authorize the National Hockey League Players’ Association’s Executive Board to proceed to “disclaim interest” in continuing to represent the Players in collective bargaining, the National Hockey League filed a Class Action Complaint in Federal Court in New York seeking a Declaration confirming the ongoing legality of the lockout.

Simultaneously with the filing of its Complaint, the NHL also filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that by threatening to “disclaim interest,” the NHLPA has engaged in an unlawful subversion of the collective bargaining process and conduct that constitutes bad faith bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act.

At a bargaining session in February 2010, Jeffrey Kessler, counsel for the union, threatened that the players would abandon the collective bargaining process and start an antitrust lawsuit against our teams if they did not get a bargaining resolution that was acceptable to them.

In anticipation of this day, the NBA filed an unfair labor practice charge before the National Labor Relations Board asserting that, by virtue of its continued threats, the union was not bargaining in good faith. We also began a litigation in federal court in anticipation of this same bargaining tactic.

The NBA has negotiated in good faith throughout the collective bargaining process, but — because our revised bargaining proposal was not to its liking — the union has decided to make good on Mr. Kessler’s threat.

There will ultimately be a new collective bargaining agreement, but the 2011-12 season is now in jeopardy.

In the case of the NBA, the move to the courts actually expedited the collective bargaining process; a tentative agreement between the two sides was reached less than two weeks after the statement above. Other moves made by the NHL – including advising players that dissolving the union was not a winning legal strategy – closely resemble those made by the NBA during its lockout, and both leagues employ the services of New York law firm Proskauer Rose.

The NHLPA’s counter-move remains to be seen. In basketball, the players’ association opted to file a disclaimer of interest and take to the courts quickly on the heels of the league’s preemptive moves, though talks between the two sides resumed even as the legal battle was fought. To date their counterparts in hockey have been reluctant to abandon the collective bargaining process. The NHLPA could continue negotiating, quickly disclaim interest and make their own appeal to the courts, or alternately opt for decertification – a longer, more difficult route but one that would have more legal weight.

Adding a wrinkle to the fight is the NHL’s Canadian contingent. Unlike the NBA, which has only a single Canadian team, the NHL has seven. At the onset of the lockout the NHLPA showed a willingness to take the battle to Canadian courts, and the Canadian legal system may still have a role to play as this fight continues.

The most likely outcome would seem to be that this battle continues to mirror the NBA dispute, and that the lockout is quickly settled. Certainly that would appear to be the hope of the league. It will soon become apparent if the NHLPA will settle for following the basketball script or if Donald Fehr has a plan to alter the outcome.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/14/nhl-lockout-battle-moves-to-the-courts-as-league-files-class-action-complaint-unfair-labour-practice-charges/feed/0Gary+Bettman+NHL+Media+Availability+w_zXKDd5t7mljonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: Does NHLPA vote mean negotiations are coming to an end, one way or the other?http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/14/nhl-lockout-does-nhlpa-vote-mean-negotiations-are-coming-to-an-end-one-way-or-the-other/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/14/nhl-lockout-does-nhlpa-vote-mean-negotiations-are-coming-to-an-end-one-way-or-the-other/#commentsFri, 14 Dec 2012 21:51:12 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=141965The NHLPA inched one step closer to moving its labour dispute with the NHL from the negotiating table to the courts on Thursday night. As per TSN’s Aaron Ward, the executive board has decided to hold a vote among membership …]]>The NHLPA inched one step closer to moving its labour dispute with the NHL from the negotiating table to the courts on Thursday night. As per TSN’s Aaron Ward, the executive board has decided to hold a vote among membership that would authorize the executive to disclaim interest in the conflict.

NHLPA Executive Board voted last night,to give players a vote to AUTHORIZE Exec Board to chose to proceed on Disclaimer of Interest #TSN

As myriad legal experts have explained over the past few weeks, a disclaimer of interest is similar to decertification but not the same. In a nutshell, a disclaimer is a decision made by the union’s leadership to stop acting as the official representative of the players. Decertification is the same decision, but because it’s made by the membership as a whole the process is longer, and more complicated.

Because a disclaimer of interest is both quicker and easier, it’s a logical first step for the NHLPA. Should they choose to do it players will be able to go to court to challenge the lockout immediately. As I understand it, however, it’s also easier for the league to argue that rather than being a legitimate decision by the union it is simply a bargaining tactic – and the quick resolution of the NBA lockout following that union’s disclaimer would seem to support that argument.

According to reporter Bruce Garrioch, the league is confident of their chances in court in the event that the NHLPA does disclaim interest:

The NHL's board of governors were told last week a disclaimer of interest has no merit and won't be won in court. #NHL#NHLPA

What happens next is uncertain, but there would appear to be two potential routes for negotiations at this point.

The most likely is that – as with the NBA lockout – negotiations will continue. In this case, the threat of dissolving the union would be a pressure tactic used to push the league into a more favourable settlement. This seems like the most plausible outcome given the recent lockouts in other sports, the relatively small gap between the positions of the league and the union, as well as the clear desire of the players to get back on the ice.

The other option is more interesting. There is a school of thought that the existence of the NHLPA is no longer in the best interests of players because the players would earn more fending for themselves than they would collectively negotiating. Because the NHL is able to suppress player salaries in ways they wouldn’t without a union – for example the salary cap would almost certainly be a thing of the past – this could well be true, though the consequences of such a move are difficult to foresee.

Either route is a plausible path for the NHLPA to take. Which they’ll choose is impossible to determine with total certainty. Donald Fehr’s actions and public statements during this dispute have been deliberately ambiguous; he could be pushing hard for the best deal he can get under the current system or working with equal fervor to alter that system entirely.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/14/nhl-lockout-does-nhlpa-vote-mean-negotiations-are-coming-to-an-end-one-way-or-the-other/feed/0Donald Fehr, 9.13.12jonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: When “take it or leave it” is nothing of the sorthttp://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/13/nhl-lockout-when-take-it-or-leave-it-is-nothing-of-the-sort/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/13/nhl-lockout-when-take-it-or-leave-it-is-nothing-of-the-sort/#commentsThu, 13 Dec 2012 16:06:56 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=141716Following the NHL lockout requires, among other things, a dark sense of humour. Both sides are prone to being economical with the truth, whether it’s Don Fehr holding a news conference where he strongly implies the deal is *this* close …]]>Following the NHL lockout requires, among other things, a dark sense of humour. Both sides are prone to being economical with the truth, whether it’s Don Fehr holding a news conference where he strongly implies the deal is *this* close to being finished or Gary Bettman making his fifth ‘this is absolutely the best we can do’ offer; whether it is maddening or funny is mostly just a matter of perspective. There are dozens of other examples – players drinking and tweeting, the way the league doesn’t say things like “seven years of record revenue” any more, tales of Don Fehr showing up late for critical meetings, and the like – but today it’s all about funny rhetoric.

TSN’s Darren Dreger tweeted the following this morning:

NHL has delivered the message it is pretty much a take it or leave it, however, that doesn't mean the league won't trade on certain things.

This follows yesterday’s revelation that the NHL’s last offer – an offer angrily pulled “off the table” after the NHLPA had the gall to try and negotiate off it rather than deliver a yes-or-no answer – had made a reappearance at a bargaining session between the two sides featuring federal negotiators.

To sum up: last week the NHL made a take it or leave it offer which represented the furthest point they could go (Gary Bettman described it as “further than we should have gone”) and after the NHLPA attempted to negotiate a better deal that offer was retracted. Today, not only is that offer back on the table, but the league is willing to negotiate off it.

It would be a stunning reversal if “stunning reversal” hadn’t already become the league’s go-to bargaining position. Certainly since the mid-October offer predicated on an 82-game schedule, the NHL has been issuing ultimatums and darkly hinting that this time this is as far as they can go (this pattern actually started even earlier; when the pre-season games were cancelled the league implied that the offers would get worse as revenue started disappearing).

The NHLPA has consistently responded by declining to take the league at its word. They’ve been rewarded when the league’s subsequent actions have contradicted its prior statement: the league has made a number of ‘take it or leave it’ style offers and not one of them as of yet has actually turned out to be a ‘take it or leave it’ scenario.

That is not to say that the NHLPA are the good guys in this dispute. A point I’ve made repeatedly over the NHL lockout is that there are no good guys: there are two rich parties, both with highly competent representation, fighting over their share of billions of dollars in fan/government money. There is no point in trying to determine the side of truth and justice, because there is no side of truth and justice in this dispute.

What is beyond dispute, however, is that Gary Bettman has lost the ability to credibly issue ultimatums. The NHLPA has been repeatedly rewarded for doubting his word. If he remains NHL commissioner following this latest labour battle, it’s a lesson that anyone negotiating with him would do well to keep in mind.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/13/nhl-lockout-when-take-it-or-leave-it-is-nothing-of-the-sort/feed/0Gary Bettman, BOG meetingjonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: It’s not over yet, and there are reasons to be worried about current talkshttp://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/05/nhl-lockout-its-not-over-yet-and-there-are-reasons-to-be-worried-about-current-talks/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/05/nhl-lockout-its-not-over-yet-and-there-are-reasons-to-be-worried-about-current-talks/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 20:56:21 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=140778Despite the prevailing “cautious optimism” coming out of recent talks between individual players and owners, many reasons remain to be concerned about the state of negotiations between the league and the NHLPA.

One of the most obvious is the extreme …

]]>Despite the prevailing “cautious optimism” coming out of recent talks between individual players and owners, many reasons remain to be concerned about the state of negotiations between the league and the NHLPA.

Negotiations between NHL-NHLPA are at such sensitive stage NHL govs weren’t even given specifics from yesterday’s session at today’s BofG.

Gary Bettman’s comments to the media following the meeting were so brief as to be comical. He gave no specifics of any kind on either the meeting with league governors or the negotiations, and took no questions. The entirety of his comments can be boiled down to ‘we’re happy that people are talking.’

Both the non-update to the Board of Governors and the silence on both sides are ‘walking on eggshells’ moves. Many are taking the silence as a positive sign, and certainly it’s preferable to the two sides sniping at each other in the press; however it could just as easily be a sign that both sides feel any misunderstood (or worse, correctly understood) statement could de-rail negotiations. This isn’t the first time the two sides have eschewed public statements in favour of quiet negotiation, and on previous occasions they failed to come to an agreement.

There’s more, though.

Neither side has handed over a proposal; the last one we’ve seen was from the NHLPA. Players were optimistic they were taking a significant step, the league rejected it, and talks hit the lowest point they’ve reached to date. An actual proposal from one side gaining traction with the other is a significant hurdle to overcome, and they haven’t managed it yet.

Additionally, while negotiations are being seemingly routed through moderates on both sides (there’s been much talk of the ‘Pittsburgh bridge’ between owner Ron Burkle and player Sidney Crosby) Donald Fehr and Gary Bettman are still conferring with their people outside of the meeting room. At some point, they will re-enter negotiations. The fact neither is part of the process yet reinforces the ideas that a) talks remain delicate and b) neither side is making major headway on the most significant issues in this discussion. It’s possible that players and owners are taking firm positions on things like how to move from 57 percent to 50 percent of hockey-related revenue and contractual obligations; it seems more likely that there’s still a lot of grey in the discussion. As we’ve seen in this dispute, the devil can be in the details.

The word that came out of today’s NHL Board of Governors meeting is that optimism is overblown for a quick end to Owners’ Lockout III.

One of the hard-liners insisted there has been no moderation in the league’s demands, and indicated that hope raised by Tuesday’s owners/players meeting was irrational exuberance.

Governors were reluctant to comment on their Midtown meeting Wednesday, fearing hefty league fines, and while most maintained a generally sunny outlook, it is believed that the 10 hours of talk Tuesday did not deal in specifics on the key issue of the split of revenue.

Craig Adams, one of the Penguins representatives who has been in the room for the current set of talks, said nice things about Burkle and Crosby, but remained ambivalent on the state of talks. Penguins beat reporter Dave Molinari quoted Adams’ take:

Yesterday was a good day. I don’t know if I want to say we feel like we made tangible progress, but maybe we opened the door to have some progress… I think we’re certainly at the point where we’ve had enough ups-and-downs that I think I’m kind of done with that.

I’m done trying to be optimistic or pessimistic or predict where (the talks) are going. I think I’ll reserve judgment on that.

Everybody wants to see a deal made, and the fact is that there are numerous reasons for both sides to be eager to get back on the ice. The league’s relationships have been damaged by this lockout – not just with fans, who they seem to be unconcerned about, but also with sponsors and TV partners, which really matter to owners. Players have lost huge chunks of this year’s pay. Both sides are hurt by this battle.

But all those things have been true for weeks, if not months, now. We are getting down to crunch time, but that didn’t end the 2004-05 lockout and previous “pressure points” are in the rearview mirror. The delicacy of current negotiations, the absence of the lead negotiators on either side from the room, and the lack of detail being given even to people like NHL owners suggest that there needs to be a heavy emphasis on the “caution” in the current “cautious optimism.”

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/05/nhl-lockout-its-not-over-yet-and-there-are-reasons-to-be-worried-about-current-talks/feed/0Gary+Bettman+NHL+Media+Availability+w_zXKDd5t7mljonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL lockout: Expect more of the same from today’s direct meeting between owners and NHLPA membershttp://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/04/nhl-lockout-expect-more-of-the-same-from-todays-direct-meeting-between-owners-and-nhlpa-members/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/04/nhl-lockout-expect-more-of-the-same-from-todays-direct-meeting-between-owners-and-nhlpa-members/#commentsTue, 04 Dec 2012 16:12:38 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=140435On the ownership side, there will be new faces, and many of them will be ones that the NHLPA has wanted to see at the negotiating table. On the players’ side, all of the faces are still uncertain, but at …]]>On the ownership side, there will be new faces, and many of them will be ones that the NHLPA has wanted to see at the negotiating table. On the players’ side, all of the faces are still uncertain, but at least some of them will likely be negotiating committee members with real power, and others will be highly influential stars that ownership will have a chance to make a direct appeal to.

Is it a mix that can make headway on a deal? Let’s start with the ownership side.

Three of the six owners at this meeting are likely ones the players would have picked on their own, if they had been given the opportunity.

The wildly profitable Toronto Maple Leafs have no incentive to allow the lockout to continue; they’re represented by Larry Tanenbaum. The Winnipeg Jets make money and are anxious to get back to the ice; additionally a recent report (denied by the league) had Boston owner Jeremy Jacobs essentially telling their alternate governor to shut up while the adults talked when he expressed that opinion. They’ll be represented by owner Mark Chipman. Ron Burkle of Pittsburgh runs a profitable team and has been thought of highly enough by other unions to previously be named Man of the Year by the second largest central labour group in the United States.

A fourth owner, Jeffrey Vinik, runs the small market Tampa Bay Lightning, but he’s a guy who brings a wealth of experience with other models to the table –he’s involved with the ownership of teams in baseball (luxury tax), arena football (league negotiates centrally with all players) and even soccer’s Premier League.

The other two are Jeremy Jacobs, perceived king of the hardliners, and Murray Edwards, who has been directly involved with negotiations up to this point.

Their message? We don’t know exactly what it will be, but the best guess is this: the same things Gary Bettman has been saying. This was Bettman’s idea, and Bettman put the ownership roster together. Barring the extremely unexpected, this seems likely to be a show of strength by individual owners the players might otherwise see as potential allies.

One item worth noting – the NHLPA has repeatedly pushed for expanded revenue sharing in these talks; five of these six owners will likely have minimal interest in that approach.

On the players’ side of the table the roster is less clear. It sounds probable that the players will send in at least six representatives and the NHL has encouraged the players to send anyone who wants to go. Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and Adrian Aucoin have been reported as three of the players in the room, though. Crosby is the league’s top star, and has been publically optimistic that there’s a deal to be made that can save the season.

A lot of people on the outside think the players are standing up for something that doesn’t really mean anything, that in the end and in the future it’s not a lot of money. But it goes beyond that. If we agree upon a six-year deal right now, who’s to say the league won’t try this again in six years? As players, we need to be strong and show them that, it doesn’t matter what the terms are. We work hard for our contracts and work hard to get to where we are and to put on a show for the fans every single night. There’s a massive price to pay to get to this level. And (being) pushed around by our employer isn’t going to happen.

There’s a way to fix this so that we’re not in this position every five or six or seven years, canceling games and stuck in a fight. A salary-cap system does not work unless you have sufficient revenue sharing; it’s been proven over and over. Look at baseball. They got it right.

Other players designated by the union to attend are likely to be the ones most committed to its cause. At least 100 players have attended a negotiating session this year, so there’s no shortage of people with a pretty good idea of what is going on to choose from. My expectation is that we’ll see the more educated group of NHL players – people like Kevin Westgarth and George Parros – at the table along with others who have had extensive experience in this or other lockouts. Ron Hainsey would be an obvious choice; Daniel Alfredsson was a vice president of the NHLPA the last time around and would help address concerns that European players are not being adequately represented.

Regardless, I’d be surprised if the players significantly deviated from Donald Fehr’s message in this meeting. The guys selected are going to be people familiar with the process, people who have helped in the negotiations to date. The owners clearly hope to be able to sell their message without Donald Fehr present, but it seems far more likely that the message they’ll get is that the players’ most involved negotiators are on the same page with the man at the head.

Essentially, the possibility of a deal out of this meeting is dependent on one primary belief on each side. On the players’ side, that belief is that Gary Bettman does not speak for ownership as a group, but rather is pushing the interests of a select few. On the league side, the belief is similar: that Donald Fehr is manipulating the union into an ugly war they don’t really want, and that without him present their message will convince the other side to settle. My belief is that those are happy delusions engaged in by both sides to avoid the truth. Gary Bettman hasn’t survived nearly 20 years as commissioner by alienating big chunks of his support base and Donald Fehr didn’t fight long and bloody wars in baseball by going against the wishes of his membership.

Because of that, I would be surprised to see big movement come out of this meeting.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/04/nhl-lockout-expect-more-of-the-same-from-todays-direct-meeting-between-owners-and-nhlpa-members/feed/0Jonathan Toews, featurejonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: What is NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr’s ultimate goal?http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/03/nhl-lockout-what-is-nhlpa-executive-director-donald-fehrs-ultimate-goal/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/03/nhl-lockout-what-is-nhlpa-executive-director-donald-fehrs-ultimate-goal/#commentsMon, 03 Dec 2012 12:00:32 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=140192Donald Fehr is rapidly approaching the third anniversary of his involvement in the NHL Players’ Association, and his second year as its executive director. Despite the fact that he has been around for a while, his exact reasons for entering …]]>Donald Fehr is rapidly approaching the third anniversary of his involvement in the NHL Players’ Association, and his second year as its executive director. Despite the fact that he has been around for a while, his exact reasons for entering the hockey labour scene remain somewhat unclear.

Those reasons matter. By any standard, Fehr has already enjoyed a wildly successful career in labour; he spent more than three decades with the MLB Players’ Association and 26 years at its head. Baseball is the only major league sport without a “hard” salary cap and despite that has seemingly entered into an era of labour peace; Fehr was one of the primary architects of the current system there. It would have been easy for him to rest on his laurels.

Instead, Fehr left the most functional union to take on the lead role with the most dysfunctional. The NHLPA had been splintered by the 2004-05 lockout and never really healed, as the constant turnover in both the head job and the supporting case prior to Fehr’s arrival amply demonstrate. The late night coup against the previous executive director, Paul Kelly, had marked a post-Alan Eagleson low point for the organization.

Why, then, was Fehr willing to make the jump to hockey?

Fixing the NHLPA

It seems impossible to believe that a man would spend 30 years as an integral part of a union without generally believing that unions are a force for good. It’s equally impossible to believe that a man integral to the successes of the MLBPA could look at the NHLPA’s tortured history with approval. Certainly Fehr’s mentor, legendary union leader Marvin Miller, felt that way. Upon the conclusion of the 2004-05 lockout and the elevation of Ted Saskin to the top job at the NHLPA, Miller said this:

It tells me really what I’ve known all along, and that is that the NHLPA has never been a legitimate union at no time. It has always been an offshoot of management. The whole thing smells bad, it just has a very bad odor. You have a so-called senior adviser who takes the leading role in making one of the worst settlements imaginable and then becomes executive director of the union.

[A]fter Alan left and Bob came in, there was a very long period of stability in which players had a lot of confidence in the organization. And there was, after the lockout, with the change in administration, there was a significant period of flux and instability. And one of my jobs here is to try and put an end to that, so that after this negotiation is over, we can continue the task of rebuilding the structure so that when I retire, or retire partially or go on and do something else, that you’ll have an organization here that is independent of any single person who is in it, specifically including the executive director. That’s one of the goals I have, because the guys here deserve better.

The nod to Goodenow may have been a sincere comment, a statement motivated by the desire not to alienate NHLPA membership and staff who remember the former union head fondly, or a combination of the two. Regardless, Fehr sets for himself a goal that Miller achieved but that Goodenow failed in: establishing a union structure that will outlast his own leadership.

But what about the salary cap?

It is interesting that the NHLPA has so far negotiated under the current NHL system – their least-favourable offer to owners still included a salary cap and concessions on the current agreement. The association has not once in these negotiations made a move to repeal the hard cap. Nevertheless, it’s clear that Fehr does not approve of the salary cap, which predates his arrival. In that same THN interview, he was asked about the negative part of the current negotiations:

The negative I guess, can basically be that this negotiation is seemingly just following the pattern of all the (salary) capped sports. The entire position seems to be that this is concessionary bargaining, and as a matter of natural law or the way the universe is ordered somehow, the players should be willing to take severe reductions in their compensation and not have a free market for their salaries and not be able to go look for a job as you, or I or anyone else in the Western World can, and it has to be that way. And the only point in the negotiation is how far/how fast are players going to make concessions.

Since Fehr clearly feels that a hard cap system results in an unending cycle of players making concessions to owners – even if he doesn’t go as far as his old boss Miller, who pointedly said that once a union accepts a cap it crosses over “to the side of management” – the question is why he’s been so willing to go along with the current cap system and even propose a reduced cap in his role as NHLPA executive director.

When they say that, they think negotiations are about personal wants or desires or my own view about what a perfectly ordered world would look like, or the views of anybody sitting in my chair. We discussed all possibilities with the players, and the players said if we can make an agreement that we can live with and help stabilize the sport – that’s what the revenue sharing is all about – and get us out of this cycle without going backward, we’d like to try to do that. If we can’t, and it becomes clear after time that it becomes clear that we can’t, I don’t know that those instructions would hold.

So what is Fehr’s long-term goal?

My belief is that Donald Fehr’s long-term goal is exactly what he says it is, and exactly what he accomplished in baseball: a stable system that a) pays players as much as possible and b) does not create recurring situations where ownership has significant leverage over the union. In this respect his long-term goal and that of the NHLPA should coincide exactly: both want the best situation possible for players over the long haul.

The question is to what degree those long-term interests should be emphasized. NHL careers are short, after all; the best interests of NHLPA members in the short term is a deal yesterday. Fehr’s job is to balance both the short-term and long-term interests of professional hockey players, while respecting the directions he receives from current players (after all, like his counterpart Gary Bettman, Fehr’s position is dependent on the approval of his constituents).

Fortunately (perhaps) for the players, Fehr seems ideally suited to that role because he’s a pragmatist. There’s no question he pushes in a certain direction – to cite one minor example, on a recent conference call, Fehr used the pejorative term “capitulation” to describe accepting the league’s terms. It’s a lot easier to sell the concept of ‘take the current deal we fought hard to get’ than it is to argue for unconditional surrender, but Fehr chose not to do that.

That Fehr is more hawkish on the battle than the majority of his constituents is evident in something else he said to Blair, on the idea of proposing a soft cap/luxury tax:

My personal interest is for something simpler rather than more complex but that pushes you in the direction of no cap, and that’s not a direction, as of yet, the players are prepared to go.

The key caveat in that last quote is “as of yet.” Fehr has slowly and surely cultivated player militancy, and he has had an ally on that front in the form of the NHL. The league’s first proposal – the offer that proposed dropping the player’s share of hockey-related revenue from 57 percent to 43 percent, along with a massive rollback to get the system in place – was a slap in the face to players, and helped nudge them toward further militancy. Further items along the way – such as Gary Bettman’s insistence that each offer the league makes is the best the union can expect, and the NHL’s quick dismissal of NHLPA offers – have only helped to make the relationship between the two sides more antagonistic.

For example, it was the NHL’s quick dismissal of the union’s last major offer in late November that moved the NHLPA toward decertification. From TSN’s Bob McKenzie:

On pretty much every NHLPA conference call with the players in past weeks, there’s been some discussion on the potential of decertification as an NHLPA strategic tool. But on each of those calls, the emphasis always turned towards negotiating a settlement with the NHL and decertification was shelved.

Until last night’s conference call, that is. For the first time, when decertification was brought up, there was no stated objection to it. A number of NHL players who might have otherwise have raised an objection or concern to it didn’t because they said the climate on the call, after the NHL rejected what the players thought was a significant proposal, was too hot to talk of moderation.

The NHL has made repeated efforts to justify itself to fans, but over the course of negotiations it has made very little effort at diplomacy with the players. In the early days of the lockout, Gary Bettman emphasized that the players’ financial interests were served by making a deal quickly; unfortunately Bettman’s credibility with the NHLPA’s membership is not high. The league has not used more convincing spokespeople to send the same message publicly, and even Bettman has made that point less and less as the lockout has stretched on.

The results of Fehr’s efforts are uncertain at this point in time. Decertification is an indeterminate route that could work splendidly for players or ultimately backfire. While the union appears in lockstep externally, the internal politics is much murkier from this vantage point, and Fehr could be just the latest leader destined to fail because of a divided constituency. On the other side of the table Gary Bettman has survived nearly two decades at the helm of the NHL and remains a formidable roadblock to Fehr’s long-term vision.

However, at this juncture Fehr seems to be at the head of a cohesive union, a group that has avoided the quick and easy deal and instead opted to continue fighting in the hopes of securing a more favourable agreement. For fans hoping for a speedy resolution to the current impasse, it is a situation that is far from ideal. But if the goal is a stronger NHLPA and more player-friendly system over the long haul, things would seem to be progressing more or less on schedule.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/03/nhl-lockout-what-is-nhlpa-executive-director-donald-fehrs-ultimate-goal/feed/1Donald Fehr, 9.13.12jonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: Will 2012 be Gary Bettman’s last stand as commissioner?http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/02/nhl-lockout-will-2012-be-gary-bettmans-last-stand-as-commissioner/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/02/nhl-lockout-will-2012-be-gary-bettmans-last-stand-as-commissioner/#commentsSun, 02 Dec 2012 15:43:14 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=140154For at least one of the chief combatants in the current NHL lockout, the outcome of the dispute seems likely to be the deciding factor in his continued employment.

Gary Bettman has been the commissioner of the NHL since February …

]]>For at least one of the chief combatants in the current NHL lockout, the outcome of the dispute seems likely to be the deciding factor in his continued employment.

Gary Bettman has been the commissioner of the NHL since February 1993. His time at the helm has been marked by expansion into previously untapped (and occasionally uninterested) American markets, rising league revenues, and labour disputes. The 1994-95 lockout was bloody; the 2004-05 lockout the nastiest in any professional sport. At this point, the 2012 lockout is showing no signs of being a milder affair than either of the preceding disputes.

Bettman has survived an era of labour turmoil because in retrospect he is largely seen to have been right, at least by NHL owners. In 1994-95 he pushed the players hard but ultimately was not able to institute a salary cap; the season was saved but the stage was set for the 2004-05 battle because league spending was out of control. In 2004-05 he lost the season but won the war: the NHLPA was shattered, and a salary cap reduced money spent on players to a fixed percentage of revenue. The money going to NHL owners spiked dramatically and fan interest seemingly never wavered; from an ownership perspective the return on the 2004-05 lockout easily justified the year of lost revenue.

This time is different. The 2012 lockout was never about a paradigm shift, such as the salary cap, that would dramatically alter the financial game for NHL owners. It was simply about improving the bottom line and tightening control a little bit: dropping the players’ share of hockey-related revenue from 57 percent to 50 percent and instituting some system measures that would give teams more control of their young players and outlaw the insanely long deals being signed by some owners.

In mid-October, both sides presented offers aimed at saving a full 82-game season. The NHLPA’s offer at that time would have represented a modest win for Bettman and been a payoff worth the loss of pre-season revenue. Tyler Dellow crunched the numbers here; the gap between the NHL and NHLPA proposals was relatively small and the league would have knocked the players down to 50 percent of HRR by the last few years of the deal.

The problem for the league is this: if they can’t get a substantially better deal out of the players’ association, why have they sacrificed the last month and a half? If the NHL plays a 40-game season, or even worse loses 2012-13 entirely, they need to make gains to compensate. If they end up with a deal similar to their last offer – a 50/50 split of hockey-related revenue after a short transition period and relatively minor system changes – that simply does not seem like enough of a gain to justify risking the season.

As I see it, if Bettman has been a hawk behind closed doors – and given that he is the man negotiating for the league, it seems likely that he’s been in support of its hawkish negotiating strategy –anything other than significant gains at this point will put his job at risk. His primary function in this battle is to make the owners money: if it turns out the owners would have made more money by (more or less) agreeing to the NHLPA’s terms in October his credibility with the Board of Governors will take a major hit.

Nearly two decades in the league’s top job has left Bettman with significant baggage. The one thing fans in every city seem to agree on is that he deserves to be booed whenever the opportunity arises. Labour battles have left him despised by many players; comments made during those battles have also made him distrusted. Those have not been fatal problems for the commissioner to date because he’s done a good job in his primary role: making the league money.

If Bettman fails in that role this time around, it will be difficult to make the argument that the league gains more than it loses by his presence. If, on the other hand, he succeeds in pushing the NHLPA further still there will be no question as to the value he brings NHL owners.

]]>http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/12/02/nhl-lockout-will-2012-be-gary-bettmans-last-stand-as-commissioner/feed/1Gary Bettman leaves podium, 9.12.12jonwillis63460cultofhockey_blog_bannerNHL Lockout: New York Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist calls for more involvement from the NHL’s richest teamshttp://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/11/30/nhl-lockout-new-york-rangers-henrik-lundqvist-calls-for-more-involvement-from-the-nhls-richest-teams/
http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2012/11/30/nhl-lockout-new-york-rangers-henrik-lundqvist-calls-for-more-involvement-from-the-nhls-richest-teams/#commentsFri, 30 Nov 2012 23:03:58 +0000http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/?p=140097With the failure of mediation to break the impasse in negotiations to end the 2012 NHL Lockout, attention now has turned to an NHL proposal that players and owners meet without input from the league or union leadership. While the …]]>With the failure of mediation to break the impasse in negotiations to end the 2012 NHL Lockout, attention now has turned to an NHL proposal that players and owners meet without input from the league or union leadership. While the proposal would likely favour the league – after all, it pits players against more experienced and (generally) more educated owners – there is at least one intriguing angle from the players’ perspective: a chance to talk to owners with the greatest interest in ending the lockout.

New York Rangers star Henrik Lundqvist made the attraction of that evident in comments on twitter on Friday:

If the plan is to have meetings between players and owners to solve this mess, maybe it’s time to..

The comments were re-tweeted by, among others, Lundqvist’s New York teammate Michael Del Zotto and Rangers beat reporter Larry Brooks, who has been a strong voice in support of the NHLPA both in this labour dispute and during the 2005 NHL Lockout.

While the risks are obvious, various members of the NHLPA have repeatedly voiced a belief that certain NHL owners – specifically the owners of profitable, big money teams like the New York Rangers – have been shutout of negotiations because their interests are best served by a quick deal with the players. In the case of the Rangers specifically, owner James Dolan has had repeated run-ins with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in the past; in 2008 the team actually sued the NHL for autonomy in running its own website but quickly backed off after the league reciprocated by threatening to take ownership of the club away from Dolan.